Google has just launched a new website called Flu Trends, this site reports the amount of flu inections around the United States. This site records all of the flu related searches that are done across the US, in an attempt to indicate how many people have been affected by the flu in your area. Graphs are created to show the flu trends.

Photo found on Google.org Flu Site

While this makes sense to me, I have to wonder how reliable the information actually is. I was watching thenews the other day and they brought up a wonderful point, what if the person that searches flu symptoms doesn’t have to flu but just wants to know what the symptoms are in case they get sick, or maybe they are doing a paper on the flu. If this is the case wouldn’t that make the results wrong?

I do believe this a good idea, but I don’t think the way they are choosing to get the information is terribly accurate. According the FAQ section of the site their information has been very accurate when compared to the  CDC’s U.S. Influenza Sentinel Provider Surveillance Network.

I still don’t buy it, and don’t think I will be using this to see how many people have the flu. I just don’t see how this information could be useful to anyone. Why does it matter if alot of people have the flu? If I get the flu so be it, no need to calculate the chances.